September22, 2009

Washington, DC –
In a letter to the President, House Armed Services
Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO) expressed
support for the Afghanistan counter-insurgency
strategy endorsed by President Obama last
March. Skelton urged the President to give
this strategy, and Commanding General Stanley
McChrystal’s counter-insurgency campaign
plan, the resources and time required to show
success in Afghanistan.

Skelton wrote:

·“I am convinced
that there is no strategy short of a properly-resourced
counter-insurgency campaign that is likely to provide
lasting security. But, time is not on our side. Coming from
Harry Truman country, I ask myself, ‘What would Harry
Truman do?’ And this leads me to urge you to
waste no time in providing a clear direction to our
commanders and civilian leaders, along with the resources
necessary to achieve their mission—and to do so with
an understanding that the American and Afghan people, as
well as our allies, must see progress in the next 12
months.”

·“The last
administration allowed itself to be distracted from the
fight forced on us in Afghanistan by the fight it chose in
Iraq. I believe that this was a strategic mistake,
robbing the war in Afghanistan of the necessary resources
and resulting in an approach of ‘half-ass it and
hope.’ We cannot afford to continue that
policy.”

Our nation has reached an important moment in our efforts
to bring stability to Afghanistan. As you assess the
direction you set for American and allied efforts in
Afghanistan in March, you will have to make decisions
concerning both strategy and resources. But I believe
that you set the right goal when you called for the defeat
of al Qa’ida and for preventing their return to
Afghanistan. I believe that General McChrystal has
the right plan and is the right man for the job. And,
I believe that we must give our commander in Afghanistan
the resources and time he needs to successfully accomplish
this task.

You do not have easy decisions before you. The heroic
efforts of our military to provide security to areas like
Helmand province—that had until recently been left to
insurgents—have yielded American, coalition, and
Afghan casualties. Many Americans are questioning whether
the effort in Afghanistan is still worth the lives and
money that would be needed for us to succeed. I understand
their concerns. After eight years of conflict and after the
distraction that Iraq posed to this central front against
al Qa’ida, many Americans are fatigued by war and
confused by the complexity that dominates that part of the
world.

Yet,
based on years of contemplating this conflict and on my
experience with our military and the strategic thought of
our war colleges, I believe you were right when you stated
in your March speech that our nation must succeed in
ensuring that Afghanistan cannot again be used as a
breeding and training ground for al Qa’ida and other
terrorist organizations. We must succeed in order to
continue to protect the American homeland and to preserve
our leadership around the world.

I am
also convinced that there is no strategy short of a
properly-resourced counter-insurgency campaign that is
likely to provide lasting security. But, time is not on our
side. Coming from Harry Truman country, I ask myself,
“What would Harry Truman do?” And this
leads me to urge you to waste no time in providing a clear
direction to our commanders and civilian leaders, along
with the resources necessary to achieve their
mission—and to do so with an understanding that the
American and Afghan people, as well as our allies, must see
progress in the next 12 months.

Let
me explain how I come to this conclusion. Al
Qa’ida presents a serious threat to American national
security. Osama bin Laden and his minions have
attacked or attempted to attack the United States, our
citizens, and our military forces or government employees
many times over the years. The most remarkable attack
involved the murder of almost three thousand
civilians—men, women, and children. But this
was not the only attack launched by al Qa’ida, and
there is no reason to believe that the threat posed by this
organization has dissipated.

Following the United States’
invasion of Afghanistan in response to the attacks of
September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants
fled to the border regions of Pakistan, where they have
since remained, plotting attacks on the United States and
calling on others to do the same. Meanwhile, the
Taliban, close allies of al Qa’ida, continue to
escalate their attempts to attack Americans and to
overthrow the government of Afghanistan. The
situation there is perilous but not lost. I, for one, do
not believe that we can successfully root out al
Qa’ida from Pakistan and destroy the organization if
we do not succeed in Afghanistan and prevent that country
from ever again being used as a safe haven to launch
attacks against us.

There are many who disagree with this analysis. They
believe that al Qa’ida can find many safe havens
around the world and that it is not worth prosecuting a
major war in Afghanistan just to remove one potential safe
haven. While there is some degree of truth to
this—al Qa’ida is using other places in the
Middle East and Africa as safe havens—we cannot
underestimate the significance that Afghanistan plays to al
Qa’ida. There are some inherently unique
advantages for al Qa’ida in the Afghanistan-Pakistan
border area that have made the region the epicenter of
terrorism in the world. Al Qa’ida has over
twenty years of experience in the Afghanistan-Pakistan
area. Its alliance with the Taliban has deepened over
time. The terrain of the border region, coupled with
close personal connections forged of duration and often
through marriage, allows the senior leadership of al
Qa’ida to hide with a high degree of success.
No other potential safe haven comes with these advantages,
and moving to a new location would actually pose serious
risks to the organization, as communication chains could be
lengthened and well-known leaders would have to cross
international borders and risk exposure.

Some
observers have suggested that if the Taliban were to retake
power in some or all of Afghanistan, they would hesitate to
allow al Qa’ida back into the country for fear of
drawing in American involvement. It is a foolish and
potentially dangerous idea to assume the Taliban would not
provide a safe haven to al Qa’ida or any other
militant group seeking to attack the United States and our
allies. As we have seen countless times before the
Taliban expertly exploit every ideological and military
success and it should not be our policy to allow them even
the smallest victory. For these reasons, I think the
goal of ensuring that Afghanistan cannot be used as a safe
haven for al Qa’ida remains central to this
conflict.

If we
accept that terrorist and insurgent forces in Afghanistan
continue to pose a threat to the American homeland, to our
citizens and service members abroad, and to our credibility
as a world leader, a number of approaches can be taken to
address this threat. The first approach would be a
counter-terror campaign, where pilotless drones and special
operations forces are used to attack the al Qa’ida
leadership. For several years the United States tried to
focus almost entirely on targeting al Qa’ida, and the
result has been a resurgent Taliban and the increased
likelihood that al Qa’ida will once again gain access
to Afghanistan as a base.

This
is not to suggest that operations to eliminate the al
Qa’ida leadership from the air should stop. Our
special operations and other forces have had some
remarkable successes. Such operations should continue, but
this strategy will not be successful absent our presence in
Afghanistan, in part because of the strategic outlook of
our Pakistani allies. Pakistan sees India as an
existential threat and Afghanistan as important for
strategic depth. The Pakistanis fear that, should the
Indians gain undue influence in Afghanistan, they could
encircle Pakistan. Pakistan’s main tool to
counter this has been the Taliban, and many observers
believe that Pakistan retains its ties with the Taliban for
this reason. Pakistan’s strategic thinking, in
this case, would suggest that if the United States were to
depart from Afghanistan in the near term, Pakistan would
again need to rely on the Taliban to preserve Pakistani
interests. Furthermore, Pakistan realizes that if it
engaged the Taliban and the U.S. withdrew prematurely, they
would face strong enemies on both borders.

Those
who urge the adoption of a counter-terror strategy, simply
targeting terrorists, need to comprehend the implications
of this chain of logic. Were the United States to
depart Afghanistan, Pakistan would likely continue to
cooperate in our efforts to attack al Qa’ida in
Pakistan and those elements of the Taliban who pose a
threat to the Pakistani regime. However, it is highly
doubtful that their enthusiasm would extend to attacks on
those they considered to be useful tools, such as the
Taliban who are focused on taking power in Afghanistan and
the allies of the Taliban, al Qa’ida.

If this is true, our ability to attack the leadership of al
Qa’ida would suffer a serious setback. It is
also doubtful that this calculus would escape the attention
of the leadership of al Qa’ida and presents yet
another reason for them to return to Afghanistan and
further tighten ties to the Taliban.

A
second approach would focus on rapidly training the Afghan
National Security Forces (ANSF) utilizing the existing
footprint. Training the ANSF is undoubtedly a
necessary part of our strategy, but on its own is
insufficient. Right now, the Taliban and their allies
have the momentum, controlling more territory, and
contesting more districts than they did last year. I
believe that General McChrystal can reverse this trend, but
I very much doubt he can do so if his plan depends on
waiting for a large increase in ANSF. The absence of
assertive efforts to secure more of the population would
effectively cede control of much of the population and much
territory to the Taliban. This is no way to defeat an
insurgency.

Focusing on the ANSF, to the exclusion of
developing governance, is also unlikely to achieve long
term success. A military, even an Afghan military,
fighting an insurgency on behalf of a corrupt and
illegitimate government cannot succeed. The
illegitimacy of the Afghan government and corruption of
many of its officials currently poses the biggest dilemma
facing us in Afghanistan, and there is no reason to suppose
that this problem would be solved if we focused solely on
the ANSF. At best, the U.S.-trained ANSF would slowly
lose the civil war as the Taliban continued to spread their
influence, as they have for the past eight years. At
worst, the Taliban would inherit large elements of a
U.S.-trained and -equipped military when the Taliban retook
Afghanistan. Neither option would advance our efforts
to defeat al Qa’ida.

The
final approach would be a real counter-insurgency plan that
is properly resourced—including both U.S. and allied
military forces and civilian experts—to carry out the
strategy you announced in March. The elements of such
a plan are well known, although the implementation will be
challenging. I believe that General
McChrystal’s recent assessment outlines a way to do
this with the best chance of success. We must clear
the Taliban out of districts they now contest, hold the
territory and protect the population there, and build local
governments and the ANSF. If successful, this will,
over time, allow us to redeploy our forces out of that
country without increasing the risks to our national
security.

This
option – carrying out a real population-protection
counter-insurgency plan – is not without risks and
costs, and victory is not guaranteed. Providing
security to the population will require troops to live near
and often among the population. Providing security in
ways that do not alienate the Afghan population will
increase the risk of casualties. Building governments
and economies and the ANSF will be expensive.

We will have to rely on a marginal Afghan government that
is often corrupt and almost always feckless while looking
for additional provincial and local partners. We must
convince the Pakistanis to increase the pressure on the
Taliban who seek refuge in that country. And, of
course, in war, the enemy gets a vote. Any of these risks
or costs could derail the implementation of a
counter-insurgency plan—particularly reliance on an
Afghan government that remains corrupt and alienates its
own people. But, if carried out correctly, this plan
offers the best chance to gain a strategic success and
vastly increases the chances that we will be able to
destroy al Qa’ida and capture its remaining
leaders.

Undertaking a counter-insurgency campaign is
complex, and it will require additional resources, both
civilian and military, and hopefully not all from the
United States. I am not arguing for a blank check or
unlimited time to see if this can work. I firmly
believe that Congress, the American people, and above all
the Afghan people must see progress in relatively short
order to demonstrate that we are not throwing good money
after bad and risking additional American and civilian
casualties. But we have not yet given the new team on the
ground the time and resources they need to show that
progress – troops have only recently arrived in
theater, and the influx of civilian experts has only
begun.

In
the days ahead, we should continue to debate the way
forward and consider alternate ways to achieve our
goals. If we are not seeing progress after a
reasonable period of time, we should try one of those
alternate paths. But we should not conclude yet that
all is hopeless – it is not, and I believe the team
you recently sent to Kabul, General McChrystal and
Ambassador Eikenberry, would agree. We must not
refuse to give this stellar team the time and resources it
needs to succeed.

The
last administration allowed itself to be distracted from
the fight forced on us in Afghanistan by the fight it chose
in Iraq. I believe that this was a strategic mistake,
robbing the war in Afghanistan of the necessary resources
and resulting in an approach of “half-ass it and
hope.” We cannot afford to continue that
policy. We must continue to hope and work hard, but
we must also supply those in the field with the resources
they need.

Strategies match desired ends, the plan to achieve
them, and the resources necessary to carry out that
plan. We know the ends, General McChrystal has a
plan, and we should supply him the resources he needs to
see if it will work.

Thank
you for your kind attention. God bless the United
States of America and our brave men and women in
uniform.